Egyptian slaughter shows western leaders have bungled away influence

If there ever was an optimistic moment for the future of democracy in the post-Arab Spring Middle East, it certainly died in the military crackdown on protesters Wednesday that saw at least 525 people killed. The failure of Egypt’s first fling at democracy holds the dubious honour of being bad news for almost everyone, from Egyptians who thought military rule was a thing of the past, to regional leaders who supported the democratic experiment, to western powers looking for Egyptian stability.

“It’s official,” declared a headline in Israel’s Jerusalem Post. “Military chief Sisi is the new king of Egypt.”

Though the military still plans to hold elections for a new government, “it seems ever more apparent that elections will likely not be free and that Egyptian governments will probably rule at the pleasure of Sisi,” it says.

Already, reports indicate General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is being strategically lionized as the successor to Gamel Abdel Nasser, the military commander who organized the overthrow of the last king of Egypt and ruled as president for 14 years, while waging war on the Muslim Brotherhood. Sisi’s generals have squashed the first Brotherhood-led government and seized President Mohamed Morsi, holding him in an undisclosed location despite demands he be released.

There is little expectation, in the West as well as parts of the Middle East, that Sisi’s coup and the slaughter that took place Wednesday will work out well. In neighbouring Tunisia, where the supposed birth of Arab democracy began in 2011 with the revolt of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the head of the ruling Islamic party admitted the new regime has failed to improve economic conditions or living standards and pleaded for more time.

“We’ve made mistakes, but that doesn’t merit a coup d’etat,” said Ennahda party chairman Rached Ghannouchi.

Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan , target of widespread protests himself over his increasingly autocratic rule, demanded Morsi be released and said western leaders shared the guilt for the “massacre” by ignoring mounting bloodshed in Egypt.

“Those who ignore the coup and don’t even display the honorable behavior of calling a ‘coup’ a ‘coup,’ share in the guilt of the massacre of those children,” Erdogan said. “Anyone or any international organization that remains silent and takes no action has the blood of those innocent children on their hands, just like those who carried out the coup.”

The Turkish leader was scathing in his denunciation of Western tactics since national protests led to the overthrow of former strongman Hosni Mubarak two years ago. Though the U.S. — which was among Mubarak’s most powerful allies — did nothing to halt his fall, it also did little to embrace or assist his replacement. When Morsi was ousted it lectured the generals, but did not halt military assistance and avoided calling it a “coup.”

“You have ignored (the Palestinian territories), you have ignored Syria and still do,” Erdogan said. “At this stage what right do you have to speak of democracy, of universal values, of human rights and freedoms?”

He suggested there was a plot against Islamic governments, of which his is among the most successful.

Aside from Morsi and his backers in the Brotherhood, the liberal leaders who temporarily joined the interim government may be the most notable victims of Wednesday’s bloodshed. “The choice of ‘total security’ has also killed the political credibility of the liberals,” wrote Christophe Ayad in Le Monde. Vice President Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Prize winner who put his reputation on the line in joining the interim government, resigned in protest, calling the assault unnecessary.

“I saw that there were peaceful ways to end this clash in society, there were proposed and acceptable solutions for beginnings that would take us to national consensus,” he wrote.

“The beneficiaries of what happened today are those who call for violence, terrorism and the most extreme groups”.

Writing in the Middle East Monitor, Abdel Bari Atwan denounced ElBaradei “and his liberal partners in crime” for giving credibility to the military following Mosri’s overthrow.

The Egyptian Revolution has ended. In fact, the revolutions in the other Arab countries have ended as well, although there is no room for me to discuss the reasons for that here. Both Egypt and the Arab world have entered a long dark tunnel and there appears to be no light at the end of it.

The outlook for the country is grim. President Barack Obama’s decision Thursday to cancel a joint military exercise with the Egyptian army was generally panned as too little too late. The administration’s unwillingness to take sides in the dispute left it on the outs with both the military and the Islamists. A recent visit by two Republican senators in search of compromise failed, and earned a public rebuke from Sisi, who accused the U.S. for turning its back on Egypt, while griping that Obama hadn’t called him personally to discuss Egypt’s troubles.

Western leaders said the warned Egypt’s military against a violent crackdown, right up to the last moment.

“In the past week, at every occasion … we and others have urged the government to respect the rights of free assembly and of free expression, and we have also urged all parties to resolve this impasse peacefully and underscored that demonstrators should avoid violence and incitement,” said Secretary of State John Kerry.

The fact that Sisi and his colleagues ignored the pressure demonstrates how little regard they now have for western opinion and official ties. Senior figures within the Islamic Brotherhood are warning of civil war, and comparing the military regime to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Sadly, no one has suggested they may be exaggerating.

In the wake of a Grammy Awards ceremony that disappointed many, from Kanye West to the masses on Twitter lamenting the state of pop music, a historical perspective is key. Few are better poised to offer one than Andy Kim.